SDGs

United Nations Deputy Secretary- General, Amina Mohammed, has highlighted the need to reform the global financial system to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Mohammed made the call on Thursday in her remarks at a forum on reform held at the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington DC.

She noted that the goals were “slipping from our grasp” amid cascading global crisis, adding that in recent years, developing countries had been battered by soaring energy and food costs, the climate emergency, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to her, the situation has put vulnerable countries at greater risk of debt distress and undermined their ability to invest in recovery, let alone climate action and long-term sustainable development.

“These crises have unfolded amidst rapidly tightening global financial conditions and rising borrowing costs.

“These widespread challenges are indicative of a flawed global financial architecture – one that was designed for a world that no longer exists, and is too short-sighted, crisis-prone, and deeply unequal,” she said.

Mohammed recalled that the UN Secretary-General had supported calls for reform, and had even proposed a global SDG Stimulus Plan of at least $500 billion annually to scale-up affordable long-term financing for countries in need.

She listed such reform acts to include mobilising official financing at scale, lowering the cost of borrowing, and providing contingency financing in times of crisis.

Mohammed added such actions could be taken immediately and without any changes to the current financial architecture.

“There is no reason not to act and yet, the international community is not finding common ground; the G20 in particular remains at an impasse.

“But, failing to listen to these clear cries for change would be a mistake, one that would lead to the decoupling of our global financial system and an unravelling of multilateralism at large,” she warned.

 Mohammed pointed to upcoming opportunities “to build a coalition of like-minded leaders to drive an ambitious financing package for the SDGs and climate action”.

She said the opportunities included the Bridgetown Initiative, put forward by the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley; a “Global Financing Pact” summit in June convened by French President Emmanuel Macron, and the SDG Summit and High-Level Dialogue on Financing at UN Headquarters in September.

“Actions taken now, as proposed in the SDG Stimulus, would go a long way towards addressing the urgent challenges of the moment.

“But they need to go hand in hand with an effort to reform and address deep and longstanding flaws in the international financial architecture,” Mohammed said.

The UN deputy chief stressed that reforms should address challenges in five inter-related areas, starting with reforming global economic governance.

“With developing countries playing an ever-more important role in the global economy, there is a need to broaden and strengthen their representation in the governance of international institutions,” she said.

Mohammed used the opportunity to call for closing gaps in the sovereign debt architecture.

She also said the current international system does not have the tools required to drive deep and rapid debt restructuring, nor is it equipped to address a systemic debt crisis.

Mohammed advocated reshaping international public finance, including through the massive scale-up of affordable and long-term financing for investments in sustainable development.

She said the lending terms of multilateral development banks could be improved, such as longer-term loans and lower interest rates.

Mohammed added that the international public finance system also was not set up to finance public goods such as climate action, or to prepare for the massive transition to “green” and digital economies, underscoring the need for a solution.  

“Recent crises have also revealed that global financial safety needs to be strengthened while the rules of the banking and financial systems must be reset, as evidenced by recent bank failures in the United States and Switzerland,” she said.

 Mohammed said most of these reforms are already being discussed by the international community, saying it is now time “to bring these disparate discussions together, and build the political will required to transform these ambitions into reality”.